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While analyzing Jack White's guitar playing, there are certain techniques and points of interest I have come across that are helpful when playing his songs. Certain tabs become much easier to comprehend with a basic understanding of the way Jack White plays guitar.

IMPROVISATION
There is a fair amount of improvisation in White Stripes recordings, and on stage they seldom play a song the same way twice. Some of their most complex songs aren't suitable for detailed, unabridged tabbing because they are meant to be improvised. As a result, I tend to tab songs like "Death Letter" and "Little Bird" more on the basis of technique than perfection, supplying the tools and the directions and letting you build the song. The White Stripes play blues, and their most important trait is contextual honesty, not musical accuracy.

MINIMALISM
A good rule of thumb when playing White Stripes songs is that Jack White is a minimalist. That is, he generally plays intuitively and does not do anything fancy or unnecessary. Any riff that can be played using open notes, or low on the neck as opposed to high, usually is. The same goes for fifth ("power") chords, in most cases. He doesn't usually play full chords when they aren't necessary. He'll hold only fragments of chords, holding just the notes that are sounded. He also has a peculiar way of holding fifth chords, planting his index finger on the root note and his little finger on the next string or the next two in a bar.

TUNINGS
GUIDE TO OPEN TUNINGS
Jack White uses the standard three blues tunings: Standard tuning, Open D, and Open G ("Spanish" tuning), though he often tunes his guitar up to E and A for open tunings. I use a few other tunings when transposing piano songs, but they are open to interpretation. For assistance with alternate tunings, please consult the Guide To Open Tunings. The difficulty with Jack White's guitar tuning is that, particularly on earlier recordings, it is simply out of tune. It isn't a concern because he is seldom accompanied by other tonal instruments. ("I love when my guitar is out of tune", he once said in an interview.) His guitar is so often a half tone up or down (or somewhere in between) that, as long as it seems unintentional, I do not notate it in my tabs. If you would like to play along with a recording, it is easiest to tune your guitar up or down to his using one of his bass notes.

EQUIPMENT
It is important to keep in mind that every piece of equipment in a given setup affects the final sound. Jack White's equipment will not necessarily sound alike in a different setup.

On stage, Jack White PLAYS:

Two 1964 JB Hutto Montgomery Airlines	A 1960s Harmony H73	A 1970s Crestwood Astral II
A 1950s Kay Archtop	A 1915 Gibson L-1	A custom Rancher Falcon Cutaway ("Rita")

Which he PLUGS INTO:

A 1970s "silverface" Fender Twin Reverb

An older, 1960s "blackface" Fender Twin Reverb

Two 100-Watt Sears Silvertone 6x10 combos

Through at least the following PEDALS:

Electro-Harmonix Big Muff (Distortion / Sustainer)	Digitech Whammy IV (Octave divider)	Dunlop MXR Micro Amp (Signal boost)
Analog Man Switchboxes (channel selectors)	Electro-Harmonix Poly Octave Generator (Octave divider)	BOSS TU-2 (Chromatic tuner)